Last Sunday’s game-changing, blood-soaked Season 7 premiere of “The Walking Dead” left its protagonist Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) in unfamiliar territory: helpless to stop the horror unfolding around him.

The drama’s new villain Negan (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) has made it clear that he’s now in charge, fatally beating two of his group — Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) and Glenn (Steven Yeun) — and earning Rick’s subservience by nearly making him cut off his own son’s arm. While our hero went from defiant to obedient within an hour, the British actor who plays him still sees a reason for hope.

“The way forward from here, the glib advertising version that I’m allowed to tell you … is that this is more ‘Lord of the Rings’ than ‘Lord of the Flies’ this season,” says Lincoln, 43.

“The great thing about playing Rick that I’ve always loved about him and being in the show is that there’s always a glimmer of hope,” he says. “Even in the darkest and most terrifying and brutal of nights, there’s a moment of solidarity and unity when they’re trying to protect Maggie from seeing her [deceased] loved one. That tiniest of flames is hopefully going to burn brighter and brighter and brighter throughout the season.”

In Sunday’s second episode (9 p.m. on AMC), the world of “The Walking Dead” expands even more when we catch up with Morgan (Lennie James) and Carol (Melissa McBride) in a new well-established community called The Kingdom, ruled by the dreadlocked King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) and his pet tiger. Lincoln is coy about this new place; when pressed he’ll only say, “it’s a completely different citadel to anything we’ve experienced before and there are two sides to this world that you will discover.” He will admit, however, that the character brings a bit of levity to the storyline after last week’s darkness.

“We’ve got a f—ing tiger!” he says. “I’ve never watched an episode of the show, but the thing I’ve become a bit of a junkie for is whenever I’m feeling a tad down or tired, I go up to Victor — the head of our effects department — and say, ‘Show us the tiger.’ And he shows us the tiger and it makes me very, very happy.”

King Ezekiel (Khary Payton) and his tiger rule over The Kingdom — and play a big role on Sunday’s episode.Photo: Gene Page/AMC

The addition of Negan and Ezekiel underline how large “The Walking Dead” cast — and how expansive its story — has become since Season 1, which featured just seven main characters. With Glenn’s death, only two of those seven — Rick and his son Carl (Chandler Riggs) — are still alive, making Glenn’s absence even more profound for the show’s star.

“The only cruel part of doing this job — apart from the weather in Atlanta mid-summer — is the fact that you lose dear friends. Steven is one of my best friends, period,” Lincoln says. “He’s one of the founding fathers of this show. He was there in the tank when I first started, when I didn’t have gray hair and he didn’t have any facial hair.

“To lose him now, it makes the prospect of returning to Atlanta and doing this job less enjoyable,” he says. “When I echoed that sentiment to [showrunner] Scott Gimple he said, ‘That’s the point, unfortunately. That’s the story we’re telling.’”